The Best Dad I Can Be
by Xanderlike
Summary: When you ain't a good man, when there's so much blood on your hands an ocean couldn't wash them clean, there's only one way to be a good dad. Make your kids hate you.


It ain't easy being a Dad.

Yeah, you think I can't read your face? You're big on the poker face, but I'm even better at reading them. So, yeah. Stand there with that _look _on your face and think that you're better than me, a better father than me. Tell me how your kids love you like mine never will love me. Tell me how my daughter hates me 'cause she thinks I don't give a damn about her…

Yeah, go on. Tell me.

You ain't no Dad.

You think you are, but you ain't.

You train those kids—same as I trained mine. You let them put on capes and cowls and go out fighting guys like me—guys _worse_ than me. And for what?

_Justice?_

Because it's _right?_

You got money.

Everyone knows that. You got all those _toys_. Jets. Cars. A Batarang for every occasion. Hell, they say you paid for that damn satellite all by yourself.

And yet you let _kids_ go out and fight—and maybe die.

I love my kids.

I didn't want this for them—either of them.

I tried to go straight when Jade was born, you know that? First time I held her in my arms I promised that she wasn't going to have this life. She was going to have better things. She was going to go to school—college even! Maybe be a doctor or something. She wasn't going to have blood on her hands. No, my _girl_ was gonna be legit!

Yeah, didn't work out that way did it?

I tried. I really did. Hell, you know what I can do. How many guys my age can fight like this? Move like this? I shoulda been able to be a major league pitcher, a quarterback—at least a heavyweight champion.

But no one was going to give a guy like me a chance.

And one day when I came home—back to that crappy apartment we were living in, back from that crappy job I had. I came back bonetired and wantin' nothing more than a beer, nothing more than quiet, and Jade was screaming, hollering, having a little girl tantrum ….

And I hit her.

I've done bad things, Bats. I've killed. Tortured. Made more widows and orphans than I can count. But you know what I feel bad? You know what I still have nightmares about?

Hittin' my girl.

So I went back to the life that I knew. The thing that I was good at.

And Jade?

I knew that I had to protect her. I had to make her strong so that she could survive anything that life might throw at her—even me.

So, yeah.

I taught her the Life. I taught her how to fight. How to trust no one but herself.

Did I want to? Did I want her to be the kind of girl that could kill a man as soon as look at him?

No.

I wanted her to _survive._

And Artemis …

You know the hardest thing I ever had to do, Bats?

Making my youngest daughter hate me.

Jade—Jade has always been like me. Cold. Hard. A killer.

Artemis … not so much.

She talks a big game, I know. I heard her. Hell, I _taught_ her.

But inside? Inside she's a _good_ girl. She wants to do the _right_ thing.

She wants a sister she can trust. A father she can love.

But we don't always get what we want, do we, Bats?

I'd give anything to be the kind of Dad that Artemis wants. I'd sell my soul to be the kind of man that she could be proud of. The kind of father she could _love._

But I ain't.

I'd die for my kids, Bats. Both of them.

But they don't love me.

I can't _let_ them love me.

When you ain't a good man—when you're a killer. When your hands are stained with so much blood a damn ocean could never clean them, there's only one way to be a good dad.

That's to make your kids hate you.

So, yeah. You stand there judging me, Batman. You go home to your fine house—you go home to your kids while I rot in this cell. You go home and tell them you love them and hear them say they love you back …

You do those things and think about what you'd do for your kids if you didn't have money. If you didn't have _friends._

You think about those things, and you think about what you'd give up for your kids.

I ain't a good man.

But I'm the best dad I could be.


End file.
